


Flexible

by chainofclovers



Series: Legible [4]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-15 21:05:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12328869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: “One bed is fine.”





	Flexible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Needled_Ink_1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Needled_Ink_1975/gifts).



> After a long delay, this is the final installment in the "Legible" series. Thanks for sticking with me. I've been working on this thing forever, and, true to form, it's still pretty short. 
> 
> While this story could probably stand alone, it'll mean more taken as part of the series. I attempted to get into both of their minds for this one, and as always, I welcome feedback.
> 
> Finally, this whole series is for Needled_Ink_1975. Thank you for being a wonderful friend, and one of the strongest people I know.

Late on the very snowy night before Thanksgiving, after the rerouted plane intended for Cincinnati, Ohio manages to land safely at the airport in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; after a slow reunion with their gate-checked luggage on the jet bridge; after Andy cries that she’s not getting on another airplane until Sunday; after they’re jarred and jostled on a shuttle ride to a remote car rental kiosk; after they make it through the long line there; after they laugh at their unexpectedly purple PT Cruiser sitting alone in the nearly sold-out rental lot; after they call ahead to four hotels and manage to book a room at a Holiday Inn Express off the interstate; after Andy turns an ignition key and starts a car for the first time in over a year; after Miranda uses Andy’s phone to text a travel update to Andy’s mother (she uses three more exclamation points than she’d use herself—which is to say, she uses three exclamation points—and Mrs. Sachs would never guess anybody but her daughter typed the message); after they miss their exit; after Miranda says “It’s not that bad out here” and Andy silences her with the sound of her own panicked breathing; after Andy successfully pulls off an illegal U-turn, maneuvers the car through a mostly-controlled slide down the icy exit ramp, and careens into a spot in the skating rink of a parking lot; after Miranda manages to clench her jaw shut rather than yell at Andy for giving into the domino effect of bad winter driving; after their slow walk to the lobby, during which they manage not to fall down, and to sidestep most of the already-dirty slush despite their improper shoes; after they set down their suitcases and lean against the front desk; after they sigh at the comparative comfort of an impersonal, artificially-warmed lobby that frequently opens itself to the frigid weather because of its overly sensitive automatic doors—

—after all of that, Miranda Priestly and Andy Sachs take in the sight of the desk attendant and he takes in the sight of them. His nametag says "Kevin." A beer belly has just begun to weigh down the front of his Holiday Inn polo shirt. He’s started balding young but has a friendly, handsome face. To Kevin, the women (city and money, two distinct perfumes) are like foreigners in their own country, and they feel the same way about him. 

Kevin confirms that Andy is indeed the customer who booked by phone within the last half hour, then he glances down at the computer before him, types a few practiced keystrokes. “Would you prefer a room with two queen beds?” he asks, still addressing Andy.

“Um—” Andy starts.

Miranda speaks. “One bed is fine.” 

More keystrokes, the quickness of muscle memory. “It looks like we’ve only got single king beds left,” Kevin says. “I’m so sorry,” he adds, as if he hasn’t heard Miranda. The apology is tic-like, a product of the usually misguided customer service philosophy that one should say “sorry” early and often. 

“One bed is fine,” Miranda repeats. Kevin glances up at her, and she gives her wedding ring a meaningful twist. 

Andy smiles at this, and will continue to smile whenever she thinks of it for the several days the memory remains fresh, will smile about it even years later, when the memory returns to her suddenly. Andy isn’t at all ashamed of her relationship with Miranda, and has no problem inserting the truth of them into relevant conversation. But if this throw-away interaction had been solely up to her, she’d have responded to the question of beds with “whatever you have is okay.” If they ended up with two queens, they’d simply sleep together in one and use the second as a glorified luggage stand, no harm done. 

Miranda is different: she is rigid, and Andy supposes she’s earned it. They’ve been together for several years, but at the beginning she watched Miranda torment herself for months over absolutely everything even vaguely topical to the fact of her dating Andy. She begged Andy for time, for patience. And when she finally came out, many months after they became an open-but-secret couple, even the most negative reactions were insignificant compared to the pain she’d already inflicted upon herself. Andy will never know how much of that was intentional. 

Even now, married and settled and happy, and long employed at a newspaper that has nothing to do with _Runway_ , Andy finds her feelings deeply hurt over the occasional insinuation on the part of a stranger that she’s a gold-digger or that Miranda’s a lech. Miranda sympathizes with the experience of that sting, but she no longer relates. She struggled, she won, and now she is unapologetic about her desire for a plus-one at all events and her deeper desire to poke holes at any heterosexist assumption she encounters. Unrealistically, she’d like a retraction of every insipid news story that has implied “lesbian experiment” instead of “lifelong queer.” Realistically, she’d like to stay with Andy in a hotel room with a single king-sized bed.

“Thanks for being flexible, ladies,” says Kevin. To his credit, he offers neither an additional apology nor a rollaway cot. 

When they arrive at their room, Andy immediately calls her mother to plan, to apologize, to complain, to reassure, to participate in the entire potpourri of dynamics that comprise most of their interactions as adult daughter and mother. It becomes clear that the task of placating the anxious parents will take a while, so Miranda wanders to the hallway vending area where, among the slim pickings, she procures a dinner of bottled water, those strange bright orange peanut butter crackers, and—because she loves Andy—a pack of cherry Twizzlers she hopes aren’t too stale to eat. Miranda shrugs to herself as she walks back to the room with the unappetizing fare; ultimately, she is an American.

Andy is still on the phone when she gets back to the room, but when she sees the Twizzlers her eyes light up as if Miranda has brought her a bouquet of flowers. And, Miranda understands, that’s essentially what she’s done. This is the relationship that’s finally taught Miranda that flowers, the literal blossoms, are not the point of sending someone an arrangement or bringing a bouquet home. The point is to give a gift, to use that gift to say, _When I saw this pretty or interesting or inspiring thing, I thought of you_. In this case, it’s _I thought of you when I saw these bright red sticks of corn syrup, sugar, and natural and artificial flavors_ , but the gesture is nevertheless worth something quite significant. About once or twice a month, Miranda shows up at the end of the day with candy or a little notebook or some other gift for Andy. Andy is more likely than Miranda to come home with actual flowers, especially for anniversaries or holidays, but her signature move is to bring Miranda all the free pens she can find at conferences and business travel. Miranda loves pens but always loses them. The pens are the thing that taught Miranda the lesson about flowers, actually; one afternoon, a couple of years prior, she sat at her desk scrawling down ideas for a shoot, and during a pause happened to notice that she was writing with sticky black ballpoint ink from a lime green pen that said _Idaho Statesman_. Her heart swelled with love, and in that moment she felt struck on the head by the hard-to-come-by, obvious-once-you-know-it definition of romance. Tonight she raises her eyebrows at Andy as she tosses the Twizzlers and crackers onto the small table in the corner, and in doing so gives the bland little room an air of being at home together. 

“Mom?” Andy says, and from her tone it’s clear she’s inserting herself into a long speech for the first time in a couple of minutes. “Mom—Miranda just walked in with dinner.” Both women smile at the sight of what constitutes dinner tonight. “We’ll let you know when we’re on the road tomorrow, okay? Should be a seven hour drive . . . Yes, we’ll be there by three … a call, not a text . . . Yep, got it. Okay, love you too. And Dad. And Raina and Bradley. Bye.”

Andy sits at the table and tears into the crackers right away. “Maybe she’s just grateful we’re alive or something, but my mom didn’t seem that upset about the delay.” This is the second year in a row that they’ve traveled together to Ohio for Thanksgiving. The previous year, Maureen, a woman with a full time job at a library, pretended she didn’t understand why Andy and Miranda had to work a full day on Wednesday, why they couldn’t cut out early for the holiday. 

Miranda joins Andy at the table. “It’s because we’re married now,” she says with confidence.

“But we’ve been together three years!”

“I know, but trust me on this one. It doesn’t matter how we feel about it—before we were married, your parents felt they had a different sort of hold on you, I guarantee it. Now that we’ve gotten married, we belong to each other.”

“That’s a little patriarchal and gross.” 

Miranda smiles. “Of course it is. But for better or worse, it means that even if your mother’s mad that we waited till the last minute to get out of the city, and were careless enough to get delayed in a storm, she’s going to bite her tongue.”

“Well, she’s going to try to bite her tongue.”

“Right.” Miranda snickers. “And to my point: before the wedding, did she ever bite her tongue about anything?”

The question is rhetorical; the answer ( _never_ ) is silent. 

Andy coughs against a dry mouthful of cracker and reaches for one of the bottles of water. “She did manage to get in a few snaps, though: I reminded her that tomorrow’s your birthday and she was totally indignant at the thought that they might’ve forgotten. Apparently your cake is in the oven as we speak.”

“Mmm,” Miranda says, her tone non-committal. She never knows quite what to say when Andy’s family is kind about her, and they’ve been kind about her for almost two years. 

“How many times has your birthday been on Thanksgiving, anyway?”

“A few,” Miranda says. “There are pros and cons.” 

Andy dutifully chews her way through a few more crackers—Miranda joins her in the endeavor—before turning her attention to the candy. They don’t bother to turn on the TV or read their books that night; it’s late, and they’ve got the relatively long drive to Cincinnati ahead of them. 

“This is a terrible pillow,” Miranda says once they're in bed.

“Yep, so’s mine.” Andy’s tone is pointed, and they settle into quiet after that. But before either of them can fall asleep, a burst of speech: “Oh my God, aren’t these the hotels with those make-your-own-pancake machines?”

“Can’t help you there.”

“I’m pretty sure they are. You take this shitty pancake mix and pour it into a machine and eventually it prints out a shitty pancake. It’s awesome.”

“A reason to get up in the morning.” 

Andy laughs and smacks Miranda lightly on the arm. “You’re funny.” 

In response, Miranda, who’d fully intended to pass out as quickly as possible, rolls over so she’s partially on top of Andy. For no particular reason, it’s been a few weeks since they’ve had sex, and although she’s sleepy and a little uncomfortable, she can’t imagine another moment passing without it. As casually as she would if she were brushing Andy’s hair or massaging her shoulders, she pulls at Andy’s underwear until it’s a few inches down her thighs, places her hand between Andy’s legs. 

“Oh, okay,” Andy says, and laughs. “I like where this is going.”

“Hold my hand,” Miranda murmurs, serious. “Set the pace.” 

Andy manages a sharp intake of breath, and her hand joins Miranda’s. She sets the pace: no foreplay other than their initial slowness. They’re both moaning by the time Andy comes against their tangled fingers. When she’s caught her breath, Andy places a hand on Miranda’s hip. “You want it?”

“I do, but I’m too tired.”

“Okay, love.”

After a few moments of settling and resettling, they fall into a tenuous, disorienting hotel sleep. Some hours later, Andy wakes up to the sound of Miranda making her way back to bed from the bathroom. The haziness of the dim room is outside of time; the clock is on Miranda’s side of the bed, just out of view, and as far as Andy knows it could be the middle of the night or mere minutes before the alarm goes off. Since she doesn’t realize Andy is awake, Miranda climbs back into bed as delicately as possible. She lies on her side, facing away from Andy, but can’t resist scooting close to her warmth. She’s wearing only a soft cotton sleep shirt and her underwear, and the air is cool. “Hey,” Andy whispers, and wraps her right arm around Miranda’s middle. 

Every lasting relationship is saved by something, even if the saving happens before the relationship is ever in trouble. In this case, their marriage has been saved by this position. In this position—assuming age can be measured in quantities other than trips around the sun—Andy is older than Miranda. So much of the time, she is protected by Miranda’s money, experience, business sense, cynicism. Sometimes, Miranda protects her without even trying to. They both benefit from Miranda’s status in the world, from the wisdom she’s collected, but they’d be ruined without a counterbalance. And so they are saved by the way Andy’s body curves around Miranda’s like a shield. They’ve had sex hundreds of times, in dozens of ways, but this is the position they keep returning to. It saved them when they were new and Miranda couldn’t quite look her in the eye, when she was still jumpy but could handle back scratches and neck massages, when Andy wanted to devour her whole but couldn’t bridge the gap between desire and action. It saves them now, sleepy and half-stranded and thankful their plane didn’t crash. 

Andy lifts Miranda’s shirt and strokes her stomach for a little while, and for a minute or so it could go either way: the closeness could soothe them both back to sleep, or the shared sensation could wake them up. When it’s clear they’re both very awake, she moves her hand lower. “Is this okay?”

“Please,” Miranda says. She chuckles. “I was up half the night thinking about it.”

“You should’ve woken me,” Andy murmurs, brushing her knuckles against Miranda’s underwear. 

“It’s all right.” Miranda angles her terrible pillow vertically, so she’s able to rest her head on the top part and hold onto to the rest. “I dreamed about it while I was actually asleep. Kept waking up all feverish.”

“Did you come in your sleep?” This is a question that, until relatively recently, Andy would never have asked. Even more recently, it is a question that Miranda would never have answered. But Miranda finally understands the intimacy of Andy’s curiosity about her, and it’s better, more exciting, when she participates. 

“Almost. There were people around, in this huge house, and we kept trying to go someplace private, and finally I crouched down behind a bookshelf, but you hadn’t followed me. I laid down on my stomach and started rubbing myself through my clothes, and I was so close—”

“Oh God, honey...”

“—but I woke up before I could finish.”

“Well, let’s make sure you finish.” 

Andy replaces the gentle, almost absent-minded touches with more purposeful pressure. Sometimes Miranda doesn’t like to be touched through her underwear—she doesn’t like the feeling of fabric against damp skin—but for now she isn’t complaining, maybe because she knows she’ll get to shower soon, or maybe because being touched through her clothing resembles the dream she just had. She inhales through her nose and her exhalations are little sighs of pleasure.

The alarm, which was tuned without their realizing to a radio station, goes off. Miranda gasps, and Andy feels her tense up as her attention shifts to the red numbers on the clock face, the glaring voice of an announcer shouting about a huge inventory of new Nissans and $239 a month and lenient credit checks. “It’s okay,” Andy says. “We’ll shower fast. Come on, keep going.” She deliberately slows her pace, trying to signal an abundance of time.

“Okay.” Miranda clings more tightly to the pillow, cants her hips to give Andy better access.

“Do you want me inside, or more of this?”

“Here,” Miranda manages. She pulls at the waistband of her underwear and guides Andy’s hand beneath the fabric. “Just keep doing what you were doing.”

“You feel so good.” Miranda’s wet around her entrance, and Andy parts her with her fingers, dips into the moisture and spreads it up toward her clit. 

Miranda doesn’t typically talk much during sex, but this morning, perhaps because they were talking when they started, or perhaps to distract herself from the radio, she narrates. “I’m so close,” she mutters, and Andy feels her muscles shifting in preparation. “I need to, um—” 

“I know, honey, you’re almost there—”

“Please.”

“Do you want me inside?”

“Yes, I think—” Andy shifts her fingers lower, teases at her opening. “—ohh, be gentle, but I think I’m wet enough.”

It’s difficult to maneuver inside the underwear, but Miranda is so desperate that there isn’t time to remove it. Andy goes barely inside, then a bit farther, until she finds the ridged place she’s searching for. They’re both quiet for a moment. Andy applies firm, quick pressure internally, and Miranda’s muscles rapidly contract and expand.

“That’s it,” Andy says.

Miranda claps her hand over Andy’s, but not hard enough to keep Andy from moving. “You’re okay,” Andy says. “We talked about this, it’s just come.” She rubs harder, fingers cramping as they curl. 

“I can’t . . . oh, I’m—” She releases warm liquid in two bursts. The liquid soaks Andy’s hand, and Miranda’s underwear catches most of the rest. The second burst turns into an orgasm, gentler than the clitoral orgasms she’s used to, but longer and warmer, more complex. 

Miranda’s breaths are ragged, and she jerks her hips until it’s over. After a moment or two, Andy pulls out and reaches across Miranda to turn on the bedside lamp with her other hand, fumble with the radio until the room is quiet. Reflexively, they both look down at Miranda’s underwear. The fabric is a silky grey, and the wet spot has spread to darken a significant portion of the material. Miranda puts her hand there. “Oh my God.”

Andy laughs. “I’ve always wanted to make you do that.” She sits up, swings her legs to the side of the bed, but pauses before leaving the bed. “Hey, you need a little more?”

“No, I’m all right. We should get up. I’m a mess.”

Punctuality is important to Andy, and so is family, but there is literally nothing she wouldn't cast aside if it meant more sex with Miranda. “You’re beautiful—oh! Happy birthday!”

Miranda chuckles. “So far, yes…” She presses with her fingers, and it makes some part of her twitch. Her eyes dart to Andy, then back down at herself. She moves slowly then, and when she brings her hand inside the underwear her fingers are visible through the almost translucent fabric. “Oh,” she says, and starts to rub herself in earnest. “It’ll just take a minute.” She goes quiet then, and from the other side of the bed Andy can hear the sound of her fingers against her wet flesh. 

Andy crawls back onto the bed and lies down next to her. “You look so pretty right now,” she says. 

“Aaa,” Miranda says. It’s the little noise she makes when she’s too far gone for real words, too desperately turned on to think about anything but relief. She arches her back a little, bends her leg closest to Andy at the knee, and it’s Andy’s touch to the inside of her thigh that brings her over the edge. 

Miranda gets up as soon as she’s finished, and Andy doesn’t suggest they shower together. There are clues: the underwear in the bathroom trash bin, the amount Andy has to dial back the hot water faucet when she takes the second shower, the speed with which Miranda packs her suitcase, the way Miranda stands nearby and smiles while Andy prints out her pancake but doesn’t choose anything for herself but an orange, which she peels in a single piece. The clues don’t add up to anything, are just there for the knowing. 

They barely talk until they’re seated in their ugly car, and even then they don’t converse because Andy has to call her mother. Miranda closes her eyes and leans back in the passenger seat, enjoying the last moments of stillness before hours on the road. After sex, she used to feel tender like a mostly-healed wound. It’s nothing so painful now, more like she’s a small piece of driftwood, caught in a current, and she has to remember she won’t go anywhere wrong. 

“Sure, blue,” Andy is saying when Miranda opens her eyes and comes back to the moment. She pauses diplomatically. “Or pink. If you bought both, why not use both? Or save the blue for Bradley’s birthday since Raina believes in boy colors and girl colors.” Another long pause. “It’ll look great, no, she’ll still be surprised—hey. Hey, Mom. We’re gonna drive now.” Miranda turns towards her in time to catch an eye roll, which somehow makes Andy look more patient than she did before. “I love you.” 

Andy starts the ignition, but leaves the car in park and fiddles with her phone. “Okay,” she announces. “Obviously you’re navigating,” she says, and hands Miranda a screen with Google Maps. Seven hours, thirty-six minutes to go. “Also, I have something very important to tell you, which is that the ‘Happy Birthday, Miranda’ on your cake is gonna be pink unless my mom uses the icing intended for our nephew. And my dad got you a Barbie coffee table book for your birthday, ‘because you like fashion,’ and he’s very, very proud of himself.”

“You come by it honestly, don’t you.” 

The car is in reverse now, but they still aren’t moving. “You’ve got about eight hours to forget and act surprised.” 

“Of course,” Miranda says, and actually, she is surprised. She’s never had her name in icing before, and maybe she’ll figure out how to explain this sometime in the next half-day of their lives. 

“Give me a kiss?” Andy asks hopefully, and Miranda leans in to peck her lips. 

Finally, she drives, making her cautious way out of the parking lot. After she’s turned onto the street, after she’s made it onto the access road, after Miranda has turned on the radio, after she’s found the NPR station, Andy heaves a sigh. “The roads are so much better today,” she says, and they rush across the wet grey asphalt and the frozen brown earth to the ramp that will take them to the highway.


End file.
